Loose Ends by the Score
by Sandrine Shaw
Summary: Raylan goes for his gun the second he opens the door, and Boyd already has his hands up. It's a beautifully choreographed, well-practiced dance they've been doing for too long now to miss a step.


**Loose Ends by the Score**  
by Sandrine Shaw

Boyd shows up at Raylan's doorstep a month after his release. Raylan goes for his gun the second he opens the door, and Boyd already has his hands up. It's a beautifully choreographed, well-practiced dance they've been doing for too long now to miss a step.

"Now, now, Raylan, you wouldn't shoot an unarmed man, would you? Far as I remember, that's what our last little stalemate was all about, wasn't it?" The grin Boyd offers has teeth – and, by God, it's every bit as reckless and attractive as it was back in the day, before there were lines on Boyd's face and enough bad blood between them to run a river.

Raylan's gun doesn't waver. "The hell are you doing here? You're a long fucking way from Harlan."

Of course he knew that Boyd would get out. Gutterson had called him up from Kentucky the week before, under the pretext of hassling him again about that bag of his Raylan had never sent back, and he gleefully shared the details of the deal Boyd had hashed out. Couldn't resist rubbing it in, the asshole. Raylan wouldn't go back to Kentucky if someone put a gun to his head – but Jesus, he misses Tim sometimes. He hasn't met a lot of people who could cut through his bullshit – Tim's one, Winona another. The third... well, he's standing right in front of him, looking like he doesn't have a care in the world for how twitchy Raylan's trigger finger gets around him.

"Won't you invite an old friend inside?"

Raylan smiles sharply. "You know I would, except I see no friends of mine here now."

"Raylan Givens, you're hurting my feelings. Here I was, travelling all the way to Miami to come see you when I could just as easily have decided to hang around on the west coast. I hear Lebec's nice this time of year."

He has half a mind to put a bullet in Boyd's head then, unarmed or not. He narrows his eyes and sets his jaw, forcing his fingers to still. Boyd looks as relaxed as ever, as though he doesn't exactly know what Raylan's thinking, that the only thing between him and a bullet right now is Raylan's badge.

"Well, if you put it that way..." Sarcasm curls around his words like a snake. "Since you went through all that trouble coming here, why don't you come inside?"

* * *

The bottle's two-thirds of the way to empty when Boyd says, "I don't blame you, you know?"

Raylan raises an eyebrow. There are a lot of things Boyd could not be blaming Raylan for, and about twice as many he probably does.

"Stopping by at Tramble to tell me a lie, spin that pretty story of yours, death certificate and all. I believed you too." He flashes his teeth at Raylan, more grimace than grin, and downs another shot. "Let me tell you, I was not happy with you when I found out the truth. But I understand why you did it."

"Yeah? Any why's that?"

"Same reason you're living alone in a two-bedroom condo with no kid's room, I reckon. Only thing our daddies ever gave us were bruises and a legacy of bad habits. Just because we could never leave Harlan behind doesn't mean we have to share that burden with the next generation."

 _Speak for yourself_ , Raylan wants to say. _Harlan has no hold over me anymore._ But that's a worse lie than saying that Ava's dead and gone. It don't matter if he's in Lexington or Miami, if he goes to the end of the earth, Harlan will follow him everywhere.

Neither does he argue that just because Willa isn't living with him doesn't mean he's not a father to her. He takes her out for ice cream and picks her up after school, and occasionally she stays the weekend when Winona and Richard need some grown-up time, but it's not the same. And Boyd isn't wrong – even now, seeing her just a few hours a week, he's perpetually afraid that he's somehow gonna mess up her life.

Ava's boy must be what, now? 10? 11? Just a bit younger than Willa. They grow up so fast. He wonders what it's like for him and Ava, all the way across the continent. If she ever stopped looking over her shoulder, or reaching for that rifle at each knock at the door.

He takes a drink, relishing the burn down his throat. "You talk to her? When you were down in California."

Boyd is silent for a long moment. "I did not," he finally concedes. "I was going to. Not gonna to lie to you, Raylan, but I did entertain the idea of doing a hell of a lot more than talk. She did try to kill me, after all, and that sort of betrayal is hardly something easily forgiven. But when I saw her with the boy, I decided to let the past be the past."

"Wise choice."

"Why Raylan, was that a compliment? Well, I never!"

"Fuck off," Raylan grunts, reaching for the bottle and filling up their glasses.

Boyd's grin looks more genuine, even though the shadow of sadness hasn't quite disappeared from his face. Raylan isn't sure what it's for – Ava's betrayal, or the family he knew he would never know. He doesn't care to ask.

Boyd made his own fucking bed a long time ago, and Raylan has little pity for how uncomfortable it might be to lie in it. He doesn't kick Boyd out, but that's pretty much as far as his sympathy extends.

* * *

In the morning, Boyd's asleep on the couch, long limbs sprawling under a flimsy blanket, Raylan's hat covering his face. He stirs and grunts in protest when Raylan lifts it, but doesn't wake up.

Raylan considers shaking him awake and telling him to get lost, but he doesn't have the stomach for Boyd and his silver-tongued brand of bullshit before his first – or even his fifth – coffee of the day, so he slips the hat on and lets himself out quietly.

As long as Boyd's asleep, he can't get in trouble. Raylan tells himself he's just doing his job, keeping Miami safe. When he adjusts the rearview mirror in the car, the bloodshot gaze is calling him on the lie.

 _Jesus._ He's getting too old for this shit.

* * *

He's back home thirteen hours later with his shirt sticky with blood and his shoulder throbbing where the bullet grazed it. Greg told him to get it properly patched up, but Raylan reckons it's not worth spending half the night in an emergency room with an injury too minor to be treated promptly. At least it got him out of writing up the paperwork.

When he walks through the door, Boyd looks up. He's stretched out on the couch, reading some old ratty book of Raylan's, and a glass of his good bourbon on the table.

Something about the sheer domesticity of the scene before him sets Raylan's teeth on edge. Boyd has no business looking so _at home_ in this place, more at home than Raylan ever felt in Miami or anywhere but that ugly old motel room in Kentucky.

"You're still here."

If Boyd is bothered by the accusation in his tone, he doesn't let on. His expression is all innocence, as if that wasn't a paradox all by itself. God knows nothing about Boyd Crowder can ever be innocent. "Wasn't I supposed to be?" he drawls, like he doesn't know the answer.

Raylan shrugs – _Of course you weren't, you bastard, you were never supposed to be here to begin with!_ – and instantly regrets it. The pain shoots from his shoulder down his arm and across his ribcage. It's impossible to hold back the wince, and Boyd homes in on it like a bloodhound.

"What happened to you?"

"Some asshole fugitive thought he should open fire on me in a parking lot. Now I got a little scratch that's gonna scar nicely, and he's in a body bag."

He watches with a frown as Boyd gets up from the couch and steps towards him, eyes drawn to where the bloody shirt is showing under the jacket. When Boyd reaches for him and starts pulling the jacket off, Raylan misses his chance to protest, and before he's gathered his wits again, Boyd has already nudged him into the bathroom and got the first aid kit out from under the sink. It's only when he goes for the buttons of the shirt that Raylan pushes his hands away.

"It's just a graze. Jesus. I'm not an invalid, I can still undress myself," he grumbles.

Like a dare, Boyd raises an eyebrow and the drawl of his voice has an edge that's part-amusement, part-annoyance. "Go on then, be my guest."

It takes longer than Raylan would have liked to get himself out of the shirt, and he tries masking the pained grunts with scowls directed at Boyd, who wears the kind of smug expression that Raylan would like to wipe away with a fist if it wouldn't literally hurt him more than Boyd.

The iodine stings, but Boyd's hands are gentle when he cleans the wound. Warm skin and rough calluses, a touch altogether too familiar even if it has been a long time since the two of them shared anything but violence. Raylan closes his eyes and tries to focus on the aches in his shoulder, the discomfort of two grown men cramped in the tiny space between toilet seat, sink and bathtub, the embarrassment of having Boyd Crowder of all people patch him up.

"That's just like you, Raylan. Not forty-eight hours ago, I was thinking that I was going to find you and put a nice deep hole between your eyes and here I am, fixing you up. You act like you're all about the quick draw, but your real weapon is the way you mess with people's heads. I think you're my friend and the next minute you shoot me. I come to put you down and you make me want to take care of you. Back when we were boys, my mama warned me away from you, you know that? 'That boy's trouble,' she used to say. And boy, she didn't know half of it."

Raylan sighs. "I had a long fucking day, Boyd. I got no patience for your inane ramblings tonight."

Truth is, he doesn't want to listen to that, any of it, because it all hits a little too close to home.

"Just tonight?" Boyd flashes a lightning-fast grin at him, sharp enough to cut glass. "Are you saying that you enjoy the pleasure of my conversation at any other time? That's the second compliment in as many days. My cup runneth over."

With a tired shake of his head, Raylan rubs his hand across his eye. "You never know when to shut up, do you?"

Boyd's already opening his mouth again to deliver another comeback Raylan doesn't want to hear. That's Boyd for you - he'll talk circles around you until you don't know which way you're facing anymore, and it takes more alertness and focus than Raylan can muster up right now to cut through to the meaning, beneath the drawl and the banter and the pretty turns of phrase.

There's only ever been two ways to make Boyd stop talking, and one of those is to shoot him. Too much blood's been spilt already tonight, so that leaves him without a choice.

Boyd's lips are chapped and dry, and his day-old stubble catches against Raylan's, the rasp of it sending a strange, unexpected jolt of want through Raylan. He takes advantage of the already half-opened mouth and lets his tongue curl against Boyd's, unsurprised when it only takes a few seconds until Boyd's responding with equal fervor.

It's been a while since he kissed anyone, and too long since he kissed Boyd – time measured in decades rather than years, but even after all that's happened between them, there's still something devastatingly familiar about the way Boyd tastes.

It almost gets too much. Raylan takes a step backwards, needing to catch air, to stop the roaring in his head and the flutter in his stomach.

Boyd's eyes are dark, so dark that they're almost black in the dim light of the bathroom, and his gaze is as wild and piercing as ever.

He licks his lips. "I know you won't believe me Raylan, but this ain't what I came here for."

Raylan snorts. "You're right. I don't believe you."

He leans back against the wall and lazily lets his eyes linger on Boyd, taking in the flush and the unruly hair, the way his hands clench emptily at his side like he's trying to stop himself from reaching for Raylan. "You and I both know that it's always going to end one of two ways if you come knocking at my door. And unless you've taken a turn to being suicidal, you can't tell me that this right here ain't the outcome you've been angling for."

"Fair enough. I'll admit that it's most certainly not an unwelcome turn of events. And yet, you have to believe me when I say that it's not why I came to see you."

Perhaps it's not a lie. Raylan reckons not even Boyd himself knows exactly what drove him to Miami, other than the need to face Raylan down after seeing Ava alive and, presumably, well in California. He wouldn't be surprised if Boyd hadn't been sure whether or not he was out for Raylan's blood until he raised the hand to knock on his door.

"Boyd, frankly I don't give a shit about what you did or did not have on your mind when you set out to find me. You gonna stand there and argue all day? Because if you do, just let me know and I'll go get a drink and catch some sleep."

"You were not kidding about that lack of patience, were you?" Boyd asks, amused. But he's already closing the distance between them, and Raylan assumes that the question is rhetorical.

* * *

He lets his finger trace the jagged scar on Boyd's chest. Not Ava's parting gift when she took him for Markham's money. The other one – older and faded now, barely an inch from his heart.

"Admiring your handiwork, Marshal Givens?" Boyd teases.

Whatever he sees on Raylan's face must be telling enough to make the smile die on his lips. He raises a disbelieving eyebrow. "I hope you're not going to tell me that you regret it, or else I'm gonna have to assume that you've lost your edge. Are you going soft on me, Raylan?"

Raylan schools his features into a scowl. "We both know the only regret I have about that day is that I missed."

It's as heavy a lie as he ever told Boyd, but the truth is somewhere in between. He doesn't, in fact, regret shooting Boyd, but he regrets that Boyd put him in a situation where he had to do it. It's nothing he cares to share with Boyd, who in turn seems disinclined to call him on the lie.

He laughs instead, full-bodied and brimming with genuine amusement. "Ah, that's more like it."

Raylan wonders about those near-misses. From the depths of the mines in the early days to the top of the hills when Raylan put down his badge and came after Boyd. All those times their paths collided and it could easily have turned out worse. Or better, maybe. Hard to tell which is which, sometimes.

"Don't you think it's funny, though? That after everything, after all those times we took aim and vowed to put the other down, we're right back where we started." He lies back and squints at Boyd through half-closed eyes.

"If that is how you want to see it. I'd argue that we're not really back where we started, however. As you yourself said, we're a long way from Harlan, Raylan. And you, my friend, need to stop thinking so much." He pulls himself on top of Raylan, and the way he's extra careful not to put any weight on the injured shoulder makes Raylan ache in a place a bit further down and deeper in than the wound.

He grins that grin that he knows still gets him out of trouble – and sometimes in trouble – with the ladies and the occasional guy. "Yeah? How about you help distract me, then?"

"You know me, always glad to help," Boyd quips, and proceeds to do just that.

* * *

"Where're you gonna go now?" Raylan asks over breakfast. They're at his favorite diner, a shabby little place that looks like Kentucky and serves the best apple pie and worst coffee in Miami.

Boyd cuts off a piece of pie with his fork and lifts it to his mouth, chewing it meticulously before responding. "You know, I haven't really considered it yet, but I might well be sticking around here in Miami for bit. Enjoy the scenery, get to know the people."

Raylan leans back in his seat and laces his fingers in front of him to stop his right hand from going down to rest on the handle of his gun. He reminds himself that it's not 2010 and Boyd isn't Tommy Bucks. If Raylan really wants him out of Miami, he doesn't need to give him an ultimatum; all he probably has to do is tell him to get lost. Whatever Boyd claimed last night, there's nothing holding him here except for Raylan.

It's not without surprise that he realizes that maybe he doesn't want Boyd gone as badly as he thought he did.

Doesn't mean he's gonna start going easy on him.

"If you start robbing banks, I'm still gonna put you down," he says, and he means every word of it.

It's probably exactly that – the fact that Boyd _knows_ that Raylan isn't kidding – that prompts a burst of laughter from him. "O ye of little faith. Don't you know, Raylan? I'm all _reformed_ now." He smiles that shark smile of his. "Maybe it's time to go legit, who knows. I always wanted to open a Dairy Queen."

Raylan takes a sip of his coffee, wincing at the taste and swallowing it quick enough that it barely hits his tastebuds.

It could be a joke, or maybe not. It's hard to tell with Boyd sometimes. It doesn't matter either. Boyd's gonna do whatever the fuck Boyd's gonna do, and somewhere down the line he and Raylan are gonna clash and find themselves on opposite ends of a gun.

Or maybe not – maybe this time, the story will have a different ending. Raylan allows himself a small, wistful smile. Wouldn't that be something.

End.


End file.
